


Covering Up

by Jenni_Snake



Series: Imagine Sisyphus Happy [4]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M, Tattoos, Tumblr: jaegercon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:55:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenni_Snake/pseuds/Jenni_Snake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Hermann didn't like to admit it, but he adored Newton's tattoos.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>(For the Jaegercon Bingo Card Prompt: Tattoos)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Covering Up

Some nights he couldn't sleep. He would get jealous of Newton, arms flung over his head, one leg overtop of the covers, asleep as if he'd been drugged, dead to the world. Hermann swore that there could be a kaiju attack right outside the window, and it still wouldn't wake him up. He shook his head at the thought - that would probably be the only thing that would wake him up.

He stretched out his hand for his bedside lamp, one eye still on Newt, and switched it on. Newton showed no sign of movement. He took his hand off the lamp switch. Nothing. He placed it on Newton's chest. Still, he slept. Hermann started to breathe normally again.

He didn't like to admit it, but he adored Newton's tattoos. They were rich and vibrant and detailed: he was a living canvas. He traced a finger over a flourish, bright white on a scarlet background, enthralled.

He didn't often slip and let Newton see him admiring his artwork outright, because he would usually launch into the specific biology or attack details of the kaiju that adorned him, and now that there were no more kaiju, Hermann wanted to be reminded less and less of the horror and stress of the last twelve years. He just wanted to rest, just wanted to do things without thinking about them.

There was something enticing about those tattoos. Nothing turned him on so much as when Newton sat at the kitchen counter, staring through the laptop in front of him, crisp, inky outlines creeping out from under the fraying edge of his t-shirt. Hermann had tried to figure out what it was about them that made him bite his bottom lip hard, and settled on the fact that he knew more lay just beneath his clothes, beckoning his fingers to stray to find the rest, up a sleeve, down his collar, further up Newton’s back where his shirt raised just above his jeans. It made him ache and grow hard and, when Newton was in the mood, he would let him trace a hand up his chest and down below the waist of his jeans, where only he knew that the ink spread. Hermann would pull Newton’s shirt off, and they would end up entangled on the bed, if they could make it that far, or even the floor, or sometimes just leaning back against the low bookshelf, as he came hard into him, letting his body pull him, shuddering of its own accord, more than just a few times. He would bite the back of Newton’s neck or his collarbone or his wrist, whatever was in reach, gently, but enough to leave a slight mark. The artwork healed completely, always, leaving no trace that it had ever been less than perfect.

The first time he had seen Newton’s tattoos, it had been accidental, but not voyeuristic. Newton had come to the meeting of the K-Sci department heads in what could have passed for a dress shirt, had it not been for the ridiculous black shred of fabric around his neck that he had mistaken for a tie. Newton had spent the meeting sitting in silence, except for clicking his pen and jiggling his legs, he started to roll up his sleeves, not paying attention to what he was doing, just automatically, another manifestation of boredom and nervous energy. Unnoticed, Hermann studied them, their figures a sequence of events of the previous five years, like legends painted on a Greek vase, admiring a detailing which he had trouble admitting to himself was exquisite. He had wondered how he had never noticed the small black wisps at his wrists, covered slightly on one arm by a stack of leather bracelets, but extending just past the head of the ulna, like spidery veins.

It was strange, when he remembered it, that he had wanted to ask him if it had hurt - of course it had hurt - or how long it lasted, and if it ever went away. The irony was that Newton had asked him the same question, voicing it first, about his hip, not knowing that he was looking for reassurance for his own invisible pain, and he should have let him know that it was always there, but it was manageable, you could blot it out, or notice it less and less, like when the refrigerator buzzed, and it was only sometimes when it switched on or off that you gave it any heed. Otherwise it just hummed in the background, a low level noise.

He had never asked Newton, in the end, but he hadn’t needed to. He had caught glimpses when they had drifted, had found out that the long lines hurt much more than the colouring, as if it was a deep scratch that would never end. He found, too, that it was a way of controlling pain, of knowing when it would come, of having something to show for it at the end instead of invisible scars.

Recently, though, Newton had been wearing longer sleeves, buttoning up his collar, if he had one, rolling his cuffs down as unconsciously as he used to roll them up. Hermann asked him why and was told he didn't want to talk about it. He had learned not to press, just to let him know that when he was ready, if he wanted, he could talk to him

Hermann ran his hand down Newton’s thigh, as if he could absorb the cascade of colours. The art that hid the man beneath disappeared again as he turned out the light and laid back down with his arm around Newton’s waist.

He, at least, was always there, even in the dark.

 


End file.
